Peruvians March in Support of Hostages

Politicians, former hostages and ordinary Peruvians marched Sunday in support of more than 300 captives held in a Japanese diplomatic compound, expressing hope that President Alberto Fujimori’s first public comments on the 5-day-old crisis will kick-start sluggish negotiations with the leftist captors.

Former hostages also described in new detail how the captives have settled in to the strange routine of their mansion-turned-jail. It is a drama of perseverance, solidarity and human extremes, from a South American ambassador reportedly getting drunk and arguing with the hostage-takers to the dignified Japanese ambassador gallantly handing out his shirts.

In Sunday’s march through middle- and upper-middle-class communities near the besieged residence of the Japanese ambassador, more than 1,000 demonstrators prayed, sang hymns and lifted signs calling for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Their pained faces and voices revived memories of the country’s civil war, which left 30,000 people dead and brought the nation dangerously close to anarchy before subsiding three years ago. Until the hostage standoff, Peruvians had thought the strife was behind them.

“I have seen 16-year-olds die in front of me after bombings,” said Piper Pastor, a volunteer firefighter who was among the army of police, commandos and emergency personnel that has been deployed at the scene. “Terrorism is an open wound in Peru. How can you cure it when things like this happen?”

Like the firefighter, who has a friend among the hostages inside the residence, the marchers urged dialogue between members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and Fujimori, who broke four days of silence Saturday to declare that he will not negotiate until all the hostages are freed but might consider some kind of accord after their release.

The Tupac Amaru has demanded the release of jailed guerrillas and hinted that the ultimate objective of Tuesday night’s expertly choreographed takeover during a VIP function at the compound is a place in the legitimate political arena for the group.

“The president said the right thing,” marcher Renate Nothmann said. “But there should be dialogue. The Tupac Amaru should present their complaints and their desires, and both sides should work out a peaceful solution.”

When the marchers reached the phalanx of riot police guarding the streets around the ambassador’s residence, emotions and local political tensions flared. Several suburban mayors leading the march tried to force their way closer to the mansion and were rebuffed; other marchers accused the politicians of grandstanding.

Former hostage Javier Diez Canseco, a fiery leftist member of Congress, was also turned back when he tried to visit the hostages to recount his conversations with government officials and Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda, who spent three days in Lima discussing the crisis with Peruvian officials.

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Diez Canseco, an informal spokesman for the hostages, said that televised public statements Saturday night by Fujimori and the rebels’ leader, Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, were the start of a dialogue.

On Saturday, Cerpa pledged to free all his captives except those linked to the government. The guerrillas released about 200 women and elderly party guests the night they seized the compound and four diplomats the following day; they freed 38 additional hostages Friday. As of Sunday evening, no more had been freed.

“It’s very important that the government has expressed its position, because this means that, for the first time, in an official and clear fashion, a negotiation has begun,” Diez Canseco said. “The language of this negotiation is not that of two people sitting at the same table, but there is a negotiation being carried out through messages and gestures.”

Fujimori’s silence during the standoff had disturbed many foreign diplomats, who complained that the government was keeping them in the dark about the crisis.

Captors and captives in the ambassador’s residence were literally in the dark early Sunday because of a blackout in the area that some blame on a police campaign of psychological pressure.

To allay the hostages’ fears of a possible police assault, Red Cross negotiator Michel Minnig spent Saturday night in the darkened mansion.

“I stayed there to maintain the calm,” Minnig said after emerging from the residence Sunday.

The Peruvian government denied requests by the Red Cross to bring the hostages flashlights, according to Red Cross officials.

The 38 hostages released Friday night have told new and gripping stories about the experience of a distinguished assortment of captives--from diplomats to police generals to pollsters--enduring unaccustomed hardship and squalor. The residence is overcrowded, dirty and lacks water and electricity.

Captivity has provoked a range of reactions, former hostages said. Examples of courage and selflessness have abounded, they said.

Morihisa Aoki, the white-haired Japanese ambassador, responded with conscientious Japanese hospitality from the start, according to Diez Canseco and other former hostages.

On the night of the takeover, as hostages hugged the floor and captors exchanged machine-gun volleys with police outside, Aoki stood erect and implored the police over a bullhorn to cease fire. The ambassador also distributed his shirts among the captives, gave up his bed and, at one point, apologized to all of them for the ordeal.

Cuban and U.N. diplomats have refused offers to leave because colleagues remain inside. And the hostages have thrown their collective energy into keeping occupied and upbeat.

“One of our main objectives when we were held hostage was to maintain our morale, to avoid breaking down,” editor Manuel Romero Caro wrote in a first-person account published Sunday in his newspaper, Gestion.

The captives debated politics with the guerrillas, organized joke-telling sessions and performed relaxation exercises led by a Japanese hostage.

Captive doctors gave seminars on warding off cholera and other diseases caused by the accumulated filth. A former labor minister lectured on tax collection. A restaurateur shared tips on Japanese cuisine. And a U.S. diplomat offered to tell the Tupac Amaru guerrillas about the U.S. role in the recent Guatemalan peace talks.

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In a less dignified incident, a South American ambassador reportedly raided the mansion’s liquor cabinet and got into a drunken confrontation with the captors.

He announced that he was going to leave and that they were not going to stop him, according to former hostages. A gunman reportedly discouraged him with a resounding slap--the only episode of violence against a hostage reported so far.

Although the guerrillas have not repeated their initial threats to kill hostages, they have told the captives that they are prepared to die and that the dignitaries are likely to die along with them if there is a shootout with Peruvian forces.

On Sunday, Tupac Amaru warned that it could carry out violent acts elsewhere in the nation if Fujimori orders a police attack on the diplomatic compound.

In a message disseminated on the Internet to foreign correspondents based in Lima, the group declared: “Our support commandos . . . are prepared militarily and have enough logistical support to act immediately.”